Tissues At The Ready, People
The word has done incredible damage to my body.
In the pages of Slate, Emily Duke, a woman who “loves carbohydrates,” shares her sorrows as a professional person of girth:
When New York state announced that Phase 1B of vaccinations would include those who are “obese” or “severely obese,” I knew I would qualify. My heart sank into my stomach. I am fat. I am a fat activist. Like a lot of larger-bodied people, I have embraced the word fat. Doing so allows me to buy clothes that fit, rather than those that could fit if I changed.
The last three words of that sentence are perhaps worth keeping in mind.
It allows me to exist.
Which, we’re to assume, the word obese does not. It being less fluffy. With the power to send a fat woman into an emotional tailspin.
Among all the radical self-love coffee mugs I’ve seen, “I love being obese” has never been one of them. The word obese elicits an unparalleled grief in me.
Well, recognition can do that, especially if belated and previously avoided. And incidentally, if your world is one in which “radical self-love coffee mugs” feature prominently, I’d suggest something may be awry.
When I heard the [vaccination] announcement I had been waiting for, I spent three hours in the grocery store trying to figure out what I “should” have for dinner that night.
Three hours. One might call that a telling preoccupation. Ms Duke then detours, at length, into recollections of being in therapy, parental divorce, the “trauma” of dieting, and the woes of being told she is an “emotional eater.”
When I heard the good news about my eligibility for the vaccine… I panicked that I was a bad fat activist. I felt like I was just one weigh-in away from losing my chosen identity because I can’t face a number on a scale… I’d need to know my BMI to ensure I qualified, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle it.
No emotional issues there, thank goodness.
I am, right now, healthier than I have ever been. And I also weigh more than I ever have… I can own being fat, because I have internalised that regardless of my weight, it is my chosen identity,
As to whether Ms Duke’s fatness is being “owned” successfully, free of mental complication, I leave that to the reader.
an identity that ultimately gives me more freedom than it takes away.
Well, I suppose that rather depends on how one feels about the attendant risks of hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, gallbladder disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, joint failure, incontinence, sleep apnea, breathing problems, depression, anxiety, and cancer. Compared to which, a form with the word obesity seems fairly trivial. Not the most obvious cause of “incredible damage.” But this, remember, is Slate, where our progressive betters howl about how crushing and unfair everything is. And so, being given priority for a vaccine during a pandemic, while others must wait, is actually, and obviously, a form of oppression. Because words.
It’s also perhaps worth mentioning that Slate’s “community manager” – i.e., comment moderator – has announced that,
I will remove comments that insult her, insult fat people, or contradict the author’s understanding of her own situation.
Which seems to somewhat narrow the scope for meaningful discussion. And in light of which, readers may wish to ponder the following statement by Ms Duke:
As far as I’m concerned, I was fat with BMIs ranging from 14 to 40.
Just ignore the little red warning light. It does that sometimes.
The word obese elicits an unparalleled grief in me.
Today’s words are ‘sense of proportion’.
On Twitter, Ms Duke is emphatic:
But hey, to be clear, Ms Duke is “all for promoting healthy habits,” provided she doesn’t have to do the one thing most likely to achieve that end.
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that the Twitter avatar photo was not taken recently in which case her stated pride in her chosen identity would be somewhat compromised.
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that the Twitter avatar photo was not taken recently in which case her stated pride in her chosen identity would be somewhat compromised.
[ Slides single discoloured peanut along bar. ]
On the house.
the risk of hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, gallbladder disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, joint failure, incontinence, sleep apnea, breathing problems, depression, anxiety, and cancer.
You left out amputation of peripheral limb sections and blindness.
As for the BMI, it’s a rough measure. There are very many highly muscular and very fit athletes whose BMI scores would suggest they’re clinically obese, but that’s because muscle is denser than fat while such athletes also tend to be very lean – they cannot afford to carry extra avoirdupois when competing. Whereas this rotund lady/blob would float high out of the water leading to cries of ‘Thar she blows!’, muscular athletes whose body fat scores are under 10% measured more accurately by other means, e.g. under-water weighing or skinfold calipers, actually sink like a rock; they cannot simply lie back in the water and float.
“People can be healthy at any size.”
To an extent, yes. But how is it she recognizes the unhealthiness of anorexic people but not fat people? What if an anorexic person adopts as their “chosen identity” the look of an Auschwitz victim and that makes them feel good?
Where are the anorexic/bulimic activists?
But this, remember, is Slate, where our progressive betters howl about how crushing and unfair everything is.
^ That. I find myself wondering how some of these news sources stay in business. Or conversely, that enough people buy and read their tripe to keep them in business is an indicator of how much of the populace spend their lives wallowing in emotional distress themselves? I got my own issues, Lady – and when my poor-little-me (or maybe not so little, in her – or my – case) glands start acting-up, I hum a stanza from the Eagles to myself:
“You don’t wanna work, you wanna live like a king,
But the Big, Bad World doesn’t owe you a thing,
Get over it!”
And speaking of “buying tripe”, ping!
But this, remember, is Slate, where our progressive betters howl about how crushing and unfair everything is. And so, being given priority for a vaccine during a pandemic, while others must wait, is actually, and obviously, a form of oppression.
Takes a lot of nerve to be a ‘progressive’.
And speaking of “buying tripe”, ping!
Bless you, sir. May you know the simple pleasure of perfect eggs.
But how is it she recognizes the unhealthiness of anorexic people but not fat people?
Because she was anorexic. Her issue isn’t obesity, it’s the unresolved anorexia. Obesity is the self-destructive coping mechanism staving off the even more self-destructive coping mechanism. In her mind, being fat is the thing keeping her from killing herself.
I’ve known a handful of anorexics and it’s very common for them to balloon up to morbid obesity once they start getting treatment. It’s swapping one form of eating disorder for another, and while that’s often a stage of recovery – think of it as climbing down a ladder from very dangerous coping mechanisms to less dangerous ones – failing to address the underlying issues means never getting off the ladder.
So, she’s nuts.
Next?
Her issue isn’t obesity,
As I say whenever this topic crops up, I don’t generally concern myself with other people’s weight. But when self-styled fat activists claim, quite emphatically, to be okay with their size – while clearly not being okay with it – the temptation to pass comment is harder to resist. It’s not the fatness that’s interesting; it’s the mental convolution.
I will remove comments that…contradict the author’s understanding of her own situation.
They said the quiet part out loud.
It’s not the fatness that’s interesting; it’s the mental convolution.
“The human brain is the world’s most powerful computer – and it’s NOT USER-FRIENDLY!” – Anthony Robbins
OK, BMI is not the most useful tool in the world, 200lbs of depleted uranium and 200 pounds of pillow feathers stacked six feet high have the same BMI, however…
I felt like I was just one weigh-in away from losing my chosen identity…
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this is a question that didn’t require a verbal answer and the “chosen identity” is safe.
…or contradict the author’s understanding of her own situation.
Which is remarkably lacking.
Risks associated with a weigh in ? What, you’ll fall off the scale ? Blyad. Other than the fact that some medications are prescribed by weight, and weight is used to estimate renal function which affects how and what can be prescribed, and to add to the longitudinal history, yep, totally unnecessary. Just suck some blood, always tells the whole story, that whole history and physical thing is a total waste of time.
Yes, whenever I have a patient who wants a second opinion, I always refer him or her to “Grey’s Anatomy”. For anyone curious, “obese anorexics” is a garbage term and in the DSM-V under Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder called “Atypical Anorexia” (an understatement) and made up because it, oddly enough, doesn’t meet the criteria for real anorexia.
Therein lies the problem for which she needs help.
Wait, what ?
Is it an insult to remind Ms. “Healthiest Ever” Duke that her obesity allows her to jump to the front of the vaccine line–ahead of people twice her age–for a reason?
And that reason utterly demolishes all that “obesity is healthy” baloney?
Is it an insult to remind Ms. “Healthiest Ever” Duke that her obesity allows her to jump to the front of the vaccine line–ahead of people twice her age–for a reason?
And that reason utterly demolishes all that “obesity is healthy” baloney?
So yeah, she’s nuts.
And kinda speaks for the average “Salon” folk as well.
A glutton for punishment?
Listen fat lady: no amount of sophistry or whining is going to make me physically attracted to you.
It’s not the fatness that’s interesting; it’s the mental convolution.
Interesting, yes…and dangerous when adopted as government policy to be taught in schools and enforced by police.
Previously in Slate, this delightful piece.
This too.
And the second item here, also from Slate, seems fairly apposite.
Taken at face value, one might assume that the publication is written for, and by, the psychologically marginal.
“radical self-love coffee mugs”
Sadder are the t-shirts.
[ whips out pen and pad ]
Let’s see, I reckon that’s:
15 minutes to exit her vehicle,
5 minutes to catch her breath,
20 minutes waddling through the parking lot,
10 minutes to catch her breath,
10 minutes waiting on next available mobility cart,
1 hour staring lustfully at the donut aisle,
5 minutes picking out vegetables while cursing the patriarchy,
5 minutes screaming at a toddler to wear a mask,
5 minutes returning all the vegetables,
5 minutes lobbing all the donuts into the mobility cart,
20 minutes to checkout and demand the patriarchy assist her in loading her groceries, then
20 minutes waddling back to her car with patriarchy in tow.
Yep, checks out.
Yep, checks out.
We must’ve shopped at the same stores, then…
I find happiness in looking for the silver linings. For instance, while 3-month old white babies* are racist AF they tend to love fat people in my experience. So, there’s that.
via Behind The Black
*Cracker Crumbs?
It allows me to exist.
She’s safe…as long as she doesn’t start singing.
Imagine: The year is 1831 and the Mexican army is marching into Gonzales with the aim of quelling the increasingly restless Texicans’ revolutionary impulses. They arrive at the hodge-podge Texican fort. The comandante draws his saber and shouts, “We’re lifting the restrictions on cannon ownership and leave it to you Texicans to decide what’s best!”.
Same energy.
Her issue isn’t obesity,
Having poked through Slate and Salon, and Scary Mommy and Everyday Feminism, etc., more often than is advisable, it’s curious just how often what’s presented as a political issue seems an awful lot like a mental health issue in a bad disguise.
what’s presented as a political issue seems an awful lot like a mental health issue in a bad disguise.
That
This story reminded me of a local AM radio talk show years ago. A caller was blaming her obesity on her having a “glandular” problem.
The program host quickly shot back, “Lady … the mouth is NOT a gland.”
*click*
“Next caller!”
Same energy.
From our Austinite (of course)…
Those really are the best kinds; now off to the fields, Derek, the beets are not going to be harvested on their own.
A caller was blaming her obesity on her having a “glandular” problem.
That was a widely accepted explanation back in the 70’s and 80’s, at least among the general public. “Cut out the carbs, dammit” was not so popular. On the other hand, I have read that a high-sugar diet can alter the metabolism in ways that greatly increase the body’s tendency to gain (and keep) weight.
what’s presented as a political issue seems an awful lot like a mental health issue in a bad disguise.
agreed, but, further, isn’t what’s tarted up as a ‘mental health issue’ as often as not just poor character?
Same energy.
God, I am soooo bloody sick of these statists weaklings putting things in terms of the WWII generation, which they hate. Sometimes secretly but let’s be serious. Most people, even children of that generation, despise that generation and the real work and sacrifice that they went through. These idiots have no bloody idea what made the Allies able to defeat the Axis. They don’t understand history except what they were told in school. And even that they don’t grasp. And I’m not talking about just the dumb ones. It’s the “smart” ones that really have no clue. Now that that Greatest Generation is (effectively) gone and can no longer speak for itself, they are glamming on to what those people stood for. It’s a F***g disgrace.
It’s the “smart” ones that really have no clue.
Yes, this. Educated into stupidity.
I will remove comments that…contradict the author’s understanding of her own situation.
So is fat the new trans?
I know three people who are, or were, morbidly obese, and they cover pretty much the entire spectrum of self introspection.
Person A comes from a family with a history of obesity and heart problems. He sees his doctor regularly, modified his diet, takes medication, weighs himself daily, and exercises regularly. In fact, he joined a Karate club, and earned his black belt after about 10 years. He’s still obese, but not morbidly so.
Person B has a desk job, eats at his desk, never exercises, and blames his weight on “bad genes”, despite the fact that neither his sister or either of his parents have any weight issues. He figures he’d just “unlucky”, and it has nothing to do with his life choices.
Person C is almost cartoonishly overweight. Unlike the other two, who are both big, but have the weight distributed, his weight is all stomach. He can’t sit in restaurant booths because he can’t fit. At a funeral, he wasn’t able to sit in the church’s pews because he couldn’t fit in. And he blames it all on food companies “making” him eat too much through advertising, and making their foods addictive, as well as things like seasonally affected disorder.
Unsurprisingly, Person A, who realized he had a problem, and adjusted his lifestyle is a lot happier. He may not have solved his weight problem entirely, but he’s accepted it’s an issue, and takes it seriously. He’s not happy about it, but as he puts it, nobody else can lose the weight for him. He’s not always successful, but he works at it.
The other two, who blame the world and sinister forces for “making” them overweight, and who take little to no responsibility, live in varying degrees of misery over it.
There’s acceptance, there’s denial, and then there is delusion. And the last of those three always seems to have a twitter account associated with it.
Okay, this is strange:
On the scene, like a sex-obsessed machine: when a robot writes a play. From the review:
“the drama has a robot protagonist at its centre, played by Jacob Erftemeijer, who travels through nonsequitur scenes”
But of course. I’ve seen “experimental” films in which scenes were assembled at random, and the results were as bizarre and useless as you can imagine. (Any normal person could have predicted this, but even afterwards the highly intellectual creators thought they had done something worthwhile.)
Found via Ann Althouse who comments:
“I need to know what was fed into that artificial intelligence. That had to have been human-written text. If the results are ‘strangely reminiscent of a middle-aged male fantasy,’ I suspect that’s because the writings of fantasy-prone middle-aged men were fed into the nonjudgmental robot. Perhaps the play should be viewed not so much as evidence of the shortcomings of robots but as a window into the weaknesses of human minds. But you have to tell us which human writers were uploaded into the computer!”
They also should tell us who selected the texts. Characteristically, the Grauniad does not raise such questions.
radical self-love coffee mugs
I have three coffee mugs: NASA, Star Trek, and SpaceX. (You may be able to discern a theme here.) While all of them are about things I like, none of them are about me. A subtle distinction, perhaps, but an important one.
Having poked through Slate and Salon, and Scary Mommy and Everyday Feminism, etc., more often than is advisable, it’s curious just how often what’s presented as a political issue seems an awful lot like a mental health issue in a bad disguise.
Based on the patterns observed in this collection of works, I believe women’s suffrage was a mistake.
So is fat the new trans?
Not if Trans Inc has anything to say about it.
Although I think Fat Inc is trying to grab on to the coattails of Trans Inc as not-black people try to get out from under the boot of Race Inc.
what’s presented as a political issue seems an awful lot like a mental health issue in a bad disguise
Well, yes. That was the basis of the slogan “the personal is political”, after all – that whatever sorts of petty miseries and slights a middle-aged woman suffered could not possibly be the result of her unpleasant personality and poor choices, but were instead the work of some vast, shadowy bug-a-boo.
[ Writes down bug-a-boo. ]
but were instead the work of some vast, shadowy bug-a-boo
The West has conveniently conflated the meanings of the words “reason” and “excuse”, and is now a society based on the logic of “the dog ate my [accountability]”.
When your personal belief system goes against the principles of science: math, biology, physics or chemistry it’s not going to end well for you.
When your Government Legislates against those principles your Society has hit the Endgame.
[ Writes down bug-a-boo. ]
Do you know how to do the boogaloo?
[ Wheels in huge, antique jukebox. ]
The West has conveniently conflated the meanings of the words “reason” and “excuse”…
As noted here many times, a great deal of ‘progressive’ sentiment only makes sense as an attempt to rationalise the displacement of responsibility.
The word obese elicits an unparalleled grief in me.
I’m sure what she meant to write was “gripe”, because I have experienced a few of things in life that can cause “unparalleled grief” and being identified as a fatass when you are a fatass is not in the same league as any of them.
Alternatively I suppose she may just be a coddled, self-obsessed fool trapped in a rough approximation of an elephant seal’s body.
It allows me to exist.
No. It is industrial nitrogen fixation that allows you to exist, madame.
What annoys the hell out of me about Ms. Carbs here is, contrary to her feeling that being a fat activist is somehow helpful, she makes things much harder for people who honestly struggle with weight because of age, genetics, disease or because of medications.